Tag Archives: COP30

Mongabay podcast: What’s the TFFF? A forest finance tool ‘like no other’ shows potential

An Indigenous park guard on forest patrol in Suriname. A new funding mechanism aims to pay tropical countries like Suriname to keep trees standing and forests intact. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.

It’s always a pleasure to join the Mongabay podcast with my colleague Mike DiGirolamo, who is now based in Australia. He was interested in discussing, in part with me, the most significant story I reported from Colombia in October 2024 from the United Nations biodiversity summit, or COP16.

The podcast is linked here.

Here’s what Mike writes: The Brazilian government in 2023 announced a novel funding mechanism to incentivize forest preservation: the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF). In an episode of Mongabay’s weekly podcast Newscast, host Mike DiGirolamo explored what experts think about the TFFF, what it can do, and what it can’t.  

Mongabay contributor Justin Catanoso, who has written previously about the new fund, also known as the Tropical Forest Finance Facility, told DiGirolamo a key component that makes it different is that the money is neither a loan nor a donation. Instead, it’s an investment fund, where the “investors get paid back first, and the money that is generated by the investments above what the investors get is what will be given to the tropical countries,” Catanoso said.

Charlotte Streck, co-founder of advisory firm Climate Focus, also joined the podcast. She told Mike that the TFFF “has great potential because it is put forward and supported by tropical rainforest countries.”

Mongabay: COP29: With public climate finance shortfall, is investment capital a way forward?

The 29th United Nations climate summit was held in Baku, Azerbaijan, or COP29, the third consecutive major oil producer to host the international meeting of 196 nations. In each, the fossil fuel industry presence has been larger than most nations, and their influence far greater than the small, vulnerable nations suffering the most from climate impacts. Photo by David Akana/Mongabay

Between 2014 and 2021, I traveled to cover seven UN climate summits. I considered traveling to Azerbaijan for my eighth, but opted instead to cover my first UN biodiversity summit in Cali, Colombia. I was, however, asked by Mongabay editors to write a pre-story for COP29. I agreed. Because the overriding issue in Baku will be identifying the trillions needed for climate action (transition to renewable energy, low-carbon transportation, forest and wetlands protections, paying vulnerable nations for loss and damage), this story focuses exclusively on the issue of finance.

I was fortunate in Colombia to meet two experts in finance who agreed to be primary sources for my story: Andrew Deutz of World Wildlife Fund and Valerie Hickey of the World Bank. Deutz connected me with another exceptionally good source, economist Barbara Buchner with the Climate Policy Initiative.

The story hinges in large part on this reality: the wealthy nations of the G-20 have year after year failed to come close to meeting their promises of contributing billions of dollars to a range of COP-approved funds for climate action. For example, about $116 billion has been mobilized from wealthy nations, but the need is estimated at $2 trillion. Thus, the question becomes whether independent financial institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, plus a host of private investment houses will step in and fill the gap, or at least some of it. Some experts say the money is there if institutions can secure a modest return on investment; critics howl that loans and investments only serve to burden poor countries — entirely blameless in the climate crisis — with more debt. My story explains the issues and opportunities.